Devlin's Light

by Mariah Stewart

  “When I roll you in the hay, you’ll know you’ve been rolled, woman.” He pulled her out of her chair and propelled her toward the back door.

  India giggled and allowed herself to be led outside. Corri had insisted that all the leaves from the entire yard be piled right off the deck, making an enormous mound, so that they could jump from the top step right into the leaves.

  “You go first, Indy.” Corri jumped up and down with gleeful anticipation.

  “Well, I haven’t done this in a long time, so maybe we should go together.” India took Corri’s hand and they counted together, jumping at three into the crunchy mattress, sending leaves flying. After two or three jumps, they made Nick jump too. India spent the next twenty minutes combing dead leaves out of her hair and Corri’s while Nick made a small fire for her in the living room.

  “You can set up your files here”—he pointed to the table—“and sit on the sofa to read. It might be more comfortable.”

  “It might be too comfortable,” she said, though she was terribly pleased by the thoughtful gesture.

  “When will you be coming home, Indy?” Corri asked as she strapped herself into the seat of Nick’s car.

  “May not be for a few weeks.” She frowned. “Depends on how long this trial lasts. And how it goes.”

  “I’ll miss you.” Corri held her arms out to her and India’s heart nearly melted. She leaned into the car to kiss the little girl goodbye.

  “I’ll miss you too.” India straightened Corri’s seat belt and looked over to the driver’s side, where Nick was already strapping himself in. “I’ll miss both of you.”

  “Good.” Nick nodded cheerfully. “That’s a very good thing, as Corri would say. Now come around here to my side of the car and kiss me goodbye.”

  “You should, Indy,” Corri noted. “Nick made you waffles. And a fire.”

  “Corri, you don’t ever have to kiss anyone because they do something nice for you.” Let’s get rid of that notion right here and now, India mused. “You kiss people because you want to.”

  “Don’t you want to kiss me?” Nick frowned.

  “Actually, I think I do.” India leaned over and kissed him on the mouth, not near the way she wanted to, with Corri sitting there giggling, but it would have to do.

  “Keep in touch,” Nick whispered. “Let me know how things are going. And call me if you need to talk.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for everything this weekend. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  “That’s just the start of it, sweetheart.” He winked, and she stepped back from the car as he prepared to drive off.

  “Indy?” Corri called from the backseat. “What about with, like, Mrs. Cummings?”

  “What about Mrs. Cummings?”

  “Sometimes she kisses me on the cheek and I don’t want to kiss her back.”

  “Hmmm. Better talk to Aunt August about that one.” India laughed as the car pulled away, Corri waving furiously out the window.

  “Found yourself a nice widower with a little girl, did you?”

  India turned to see the colonel and his wife coming down the sidewalk, dressed in their Sunday best.

  “Ah, no.” India felt herself blush.

  “A divorced fellow, then?” The colonel seemed to frown slightly. Apparently widowers outranked divorced fellows.

  “Neither, actually.” India tried to smile.

  “Now Henry, it’s none of our business,” the wife, a tiny, birdlike lady, chastised him.

  “Actually, he’s a friend of the family, and the little girl is my brother’s stepdaughter.”

  “Oh.” The colonel and his wife spoke in unison, clearly disappointed.

  “Cute little girl, though,” the colonel told her. “Watched her in your yard this morning. She sure seemed happy.”

  “Yes. Yes, she did, didn’t she?” India smiled and made her way back to her front door.

  Corri was happy. I was happy. Nick seemed happy too. For a fleeting minute she thought that they had, as Corri had observed, seemed like a family. Don’t, she told herself. Just because Nick is sweet and obviously interested… okay, make that more than interested.

  He likes me. He likes me a lot.

  She dragged some files into the living room and cozied up on the sofa, enjoying the warmth of the fire he had prepared for her. She spread open a file on the table before her and spilled photographs out in a long line, trying to concentrate on Barbara McKay, but her mind kept wandering back to Nick. She could almost smell that aftershave he wore, a light, herbal scent.

  He had turned her insides to butter and made her breakfast. He had made time in his life for a little girl who needed him and took them to the ballet. He checked in on Aunt August several times a week, bringing her firewood and books from his mother.

  He could have made love to her last night but he didn’t because he thought the time wasn’t right, in spite of the fact that India had been this close to totally losing her head.

  He had found her deepest hurt, had seen her most secret wound, and had not been appalled by it.

  He had wrapped around her like a favorite blanket and held her while she cried.

  He had made her feel safe.

  He had made her feel the way a man is supposed to make a woman feel.

  She toyed with a pen, clicking it on and off, over and over. How could she walk away from a man like that?

  She could not. She knew without even acknowledging the fact that the leave of absence had everything to do with Nick as much as with Corri, as much as having an opportunity to investigate Ry’s death. She wasn’t accustomed to making impulsive decisions, but as soon as the words had slipped out of her mouth, she had known it was right. Corri had had more than enough life changes. Forcing her to come to live in Paloma now was a stupid idea, a truly terrible idea. The child would be totally miserable. What would she do all day while India worked? What about those nights when she worked until midnight or better? Who would watch Corri? The colonel and his missus?

  And, India knew, Corri had been absolutely right on the money about Aunt August. She’d be heartbroken to lose Corri. They had held together, these past few months, because they had each other. How selfish of her to expect everyone else to restructure their lives to suit her. No, a leave of absence was exactly the right thing to do, for everyone involved. India could be there for Corri while she was still adjusting to losing Ry, and maybe at the end of her leave she’d have a clearer idea of what was best in the long run. She’d be there to give Aunt August some help with Corri. It would give India a chance to focus on investigating Ry’s death.

  And it would also give India some time with Nick.

  “Nicky,” his sister had called him. It suited him, she thought. “Nick” was so adult, so cool. “Nicky” was boyish and sexy.

  And he was sexy, no way around that. Eyes to die for, ditto the dimples. She recalled his lanky frame, the long hard arms and legs, strong shoulders, capable hands, clever mouth, all of which had been so very close to her the night before. And she sighed.

  Yeah. Nick was definitely on her list of things to do in Devlin’s Light.

  Warm all over, inside and out, she turned her attention to the work before her.

  If she needed something to bring her back to reality, The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Alvin Fletcher would sure enough do the job.

  The courtroom was stuffy, the judge having ordered the windows closed to keep out the steady rain that had fallen since dawn. Too cool for air conditioning, too warm for heat, the air lay heavy and uncirculated, lending a stifling atmosphere to an already tense situation. The defendant had not yet been brought into the room; the prison van had reported a flat tire, delaying the proceedings and keeping everyone on the edge of their seats, like runners held too long at the starting line.

  India smoothed her hair for about the fifteenth time and tapped her fingers anxiously upon the table. She had been ready to take him on, Alvin Fletcher and that hotshot
lawyer from Philadelphia that the Fletcher money had bought and paid for. She pulled up the sleeves of her black knit dress that skimmed her body to the knee—no too-short skirts for this attorney, not in Judge Swain’s court, anyway. Her fingers toyed with the heavy gold chain that lay at the hollow of her neck. For Gentleman Jim Swain’s courtroom, classic clothes, classic jewelry, always understated, were the rule of thumb. Women were expected to look and act like ladies, the men like gentlemen. In old Jim’s opinion, there were few things more tasteless than a member of the bar dressing inappropriately for court, using foul language or exhibiting bad manners in public. No such behavior was tolerated in the lawyers who came before him.

  India’s eyes shifted to the defense attorney who sat waiting impatiently at the next table, noting that he sighed loudly, with exaggerated exasperation, every so often. He tapped a pen noisily on the desk. He had declined pointedly to take India’s hand when she’d offered it to him earlier that morning.

  Bad manners, all.

  Gentleman Jim was watching.

  India smiled to herself. She needed any extra help she could get. The Philadelphia lawyer, Andres, had the reputation of being next to impossible to beat. He was cocky and he was arrogant, so rumor had it, but he won. He took cases that no one else would touch, charged a king’s ransom for his time, ate up the prosecutor’s case and spent the next month on a beach somewhere.

  That would account for the tan. And the attitude.

  Well, Mr. Tanner-than-thou, we’ll see what Gentleman Jim thinks of you.

  She heard a slight rustle behind her and turned to see Barbara McKay and her parents enter the courtroom. Barbara looked terrified, her father looked murderous. Andres glanced over his shoulder, looked Barbara up and down, then turned away, as if to dismiss her. Inside, India began to seethe. How dare he treat this young woman with such blatant disrespect.

  India helped the McKays to their seats immediately behind the railing that separated the prosecutor’s table from the general seating area in the old-fashioned courtroom. Judge Roy Bean—or Judge Robert Devlin, for that matter—would have been right at home. Since the defendant had not yet arrived, India sat and talked with the victim and her family, trying to calm their nerves, going over yet again how the proceedings would run.

  It was almost ten o’clock when Alvin Fletcher was led into the courtroom. In his brown tweed jacket and his well-tailored tan wool slacks, he looked like anything but a man who got his kicks hurting women. A “wolf in sheep’s clothing” so accurately fit. Fletcher sat in the chair that his lawyer held out for him, seated himself, and immediately bent his head close to Andres’s, deep in conversation.

  Birds of a feather, Aunt August would say.

  Gentleman Jim called both prosecuting and defense counsel to him. The People v. Alvin Fletcher was about to begin.

  It had taken one and a half days to pick a jury, one and a half days that Barbara McKay had to sit and watch Alvin Fletcher as he played it so very cool. Outside the courtroom, Barbara had broken down, and India worried about her ability to hold up on the stand, despite Barbara’s assurance that when the time came she would be there.

  India spent the next two days arguing points of law, trading case law back and forth, another full day of arguing motions. Court adjourned early on Friday, sending India home with a briefcase full of statements and a list of witnesses—newly disclosed to the court by the defendant— whom she wanted to interview.

  No time off with Nick and Corri this weekend, she told herself wearily as she dragged the heavy leather case up the front steps of the townhouse.

  No cozying up in front of the fire with an irresistible man, she lamented, turning the key in the lock and pushing open the front door.

  No wonderful breakfast. She scooped up a hefty pile of mail and plopped it onto a chair in the living room.

  No pile of leaves to share with a happy six-year-old. She tossed her coat wearily onto a chair in the living room.

  India glanced at the clock. Corri would be getting ready for her bath right about now. Aunt August would have just finished the dinner dishes. And Nick?

  She could all but see him. He’d be standing on the deck outside his cabin, wearing a heavy sweater and softly worn corduroy pants. He’d be leaning on the railing, his after-dinner cup of coffee in his hands, and he’d be looking out across the bay. From the deck, if the evening was clear enough, he’d be able to see a faint glow of lights from Cape May. He’d swirl the last bit of coffee around in the bottom of the cup. He’d be thinking…

  He’d be thinking about me.

  Smiling, knowing for certain it was true, she kicked off her shoes and padded into the living room. The evening’s workload suddenly seemed a little lighter.

  Chapter 15

  The intricacies of the human mind never failed to captivate India’s imagination, and it was with total fascination that on Monday morning she watched Alvin as he studied his fingernails and awaited the court’s ruling on yet another motion. Here, she thought, was a perfect example of nature gone wrong for no apparent reason. No childhood trauma, a la Ted Bundy, to use as an excuse. From all reports, even his own, Alvin’s parents had been loving, caring individuals, totally involved with all their children, an older daughter, a daughter younger than Alvin, then yet another younger brother. Even now they sat together, in the back of the courtroom, a tightly knit unit, as still and emotionless as mannequins, as if stunned to find themselves where they were, not really comprehending the circumstances that had caused them to gather there.

  One of Alvin’s sisters sat next to their mother, holding her hand motionlessly. Just a few more victims of Alvin’s twisted mind, India thought, watching them, huddled along the last row. She studied them one by one, feeling their pain from across the length of the room. It was then that the younger sister, a pretty girl of maybe nineteen or so, entered the courtroom and made her way to her seat at the end of the row, next to her father. As India began to shift her gaze back to the front of the room, she became aware that Alvin too had turned his eyes to his family, and for the first time since being led into the courtroom, a blush of something— could it have been fear?—crossed his face. India turned back once again, seeking the source of his alarm.

  There, she thought, her eyes pausing on the face of the younger sister.

  She is not surprised. She knows. India’s breath caught in her throat.

  The girl’s face wore a harder veneer than the other members of her family, but beneath it, India recognized the look of triumph, of justice. Of having watched the beast caged and secretly rejoicing in its capture. Wondering what the girl might have suffered at the hands of her older brother, India’s eyes shifted from brother to sister, then back again, watching the silent interplay between them.

  And in that instant, India knew that she had him.

  At the earliest opportunity, India caught Alvin’s gaze and, with total deliberation, looked down the rows of spectators to the last row, then back at Alvin. India then crossed her arms over her chest, sat down, leaned back in her chair and smiled broadly. Alvin blanched, nervous eyes darting from his sister, who was whispering something to her father, and back to India, who continued to smile knowingly. When the judge called her and Andres to the bench to discuss a ruling, India strode to the front of the courtroom with all the confidence of a sure winner. Alvin shifted uneasily in his seat and fiddled with his cufflinks.

  Damn, I should have been an actress, India mused.

  Call Kosieki and tell him I want him to come into court and sit in the back row next to the youngest Fletcher girl. I want him to talk to her, even if it’s only about the weather, India wrote on a notepad, adding and make sure Alvin sees him. She passed the pad to the young policewoman who sat behind her in the front row, waiting her turn to testify as to her findings at the crime scene. She nodded, then grinned at India and went off in search of a telephone to call the detective India had requested.

  Dave Kosieki was big, blond and handsome, ver
y Ivy League. Just the type of guy, India guessed, that the younger Fletcher woman was accustomed to, the type she’d smile at when he sat next to her in the back of the courtroom. The type she’d engage in conversation. Alvin would have no way of knowing it was all small talk. Chances were his guilty conscience would assume it was something more. Especially after a day or two of watching Kosieki with his sister. And especially after India added the girl’s name to the list of witnesses she’d be calling. It was unlikely that the girl would, in fact, tell them anything; the family unit looked too tight, too close. But Alvin wouldn’t know that for sure.

  I’m going to smoke you out, brother. She smiled at him again as she prepared to leave as court was dismissed for the day. She made a point of walking briskly to the back of the court, of giving the impression of pausing at the end of the back row on the end where the sister sat. Alvin stretched his neck to watch her as he was being led through the door.

  There’s a little something to think about while you’re laying in your cell tonight, bucko.

  After two days of watching his younger sister getting cozy with the lead detective, Alvin tried to plea bargain. India smiled and gave the appearance of considering his offer before refusing to make a deal. She had him rattled now, she knew it. If he took the stand to testify, he would crack. She could see it in his face. She knew the look of a coward. And Alvin Fletcher was, above all else, a coward. India could smell his fear, and she knew she had him.

  He broke two days before Thanksgiving. Against the advice of his counsel—Andres made it perfectly clear to Judge Swain that he had vehemently opposed his client’s action—Fletcher entered a guilty plea. It was all over but the sentencing, which would come weeks later.

  India stood at the side of the prosecutor’s table and held hands with the victim and her family while they offered their thanks and asked a special blessing for India, who had helped them take the first step toward making things right again.

  “You taking off this weekend?” India asked Roxie as she returned from court, her cheeks still flush with exuberance.